The Spring and Its Thunder

Economic and Political Weekly July 22, 2006

The Spring and Its ThunderThe presence and growth of the Maoist movement today isessentially due to the dire socio-economic situation of people livingin the “affected” parts of the country. Like at the time of theNaxalbari upsurge 39 years ago, even today it is a combination ofstark poverty, an indifferent or even exploitative state machineryand oppressive feudal/business elites in different parts of thecountry that has been at the heart of the Maoist insurgency.

By SAGAR

The mainstream media is full of storiesand analysis about the so-called“Naxal menace” – and the alleged attempt by Maoists tocreate a contiguous liberated corridor cutting throughthe tribal dominated belt from Andhra Pradesh toBihar through Chhattisgarh, Orissa andJharkhand.

Maoist activities have been reported in over 160 districts aroundthe country in many of which they are tryingto establish “liberation zones” where they dispense state functionsof administration, policing and justice. (Here the referenceto Maoists is exclusively to the CPI (Maoist) formed through mergerof the People’s War Group and the Maoist CommunistCentre in 2004. There are other equally important streams of theNaxalite movement, chief among which is the CPI(ML)Liberation group with strongholds in Bihar and presence in manyparts of India.)

What is also worrying many in the Indian establishment is thegrowing profile of the Maoists in neighbouring Nepal in recentmonths and its implications for the movement’s growth in India.While the two Maoist movements have good relationswith each other, it is not clear to what extent they have any kind ofactive collaboration on the ground.

The Naxal Terror Watch, a right wing blog site that suppo- sedlymonitors Naxalite activity in India claims (quite ridiculously ofcourse) that the “PWG’s current goal is to destabilise India andthe subcontinent by a well coordinated strategy withinternational revolutionaries, and support fromPakistan and China”.

The repeated use of the term “menace”(as in “Dennis the Menace”) by both the Indian government and mediashows that the Indian state does not want to projectthe Maoist movement as too grave a threat as yet or at least does notwant to acknowledge this in public. Another and moresinister implication of this term however is that Naxalism is to beconsidered a nuisance or a problem at the same levelas malaria or encephalitis and the “infectious” Naxalites are to bestamped out like mosquitoes!(All the millions of tonnes of DDT used over the decades have noteradicated malaria in the country, so maybethere is a lesson in that somewhere.)

In a status paper on the “Naxal problem”, placed in Parliament byunion home minister Shivraj Patil on March 13 thisyear the UPA government spelt out a policy to combat the challengeposed by the “Naxalite menace”. The 14-point policystresses the urgency for the states to adopt a collective approach andpursue a coordinated response to counter theNaxalites. It emphasises that there will be no peace dialogue by theaffected states with the Naxal groups unless the latteragree to give up violence and arms.

At the same time the paper acknowledged that the spread of Naxalismwas not merely a law and order problem. “The policy of thegovernment is to address this menace simultaneously on political,security, development and public perception managementfronts in a holistic manner”, it said.

Another component of the policy is that it asks political parties tostrengthen their base in Naxal-affected areas so thatthe youth could be “weaned away” from the path of Naxal ideology.More ominously the paper says “Efforts will continue to bemade to promote local resistance groups against Naxalites but in amanner that the villagers are provided adequate securitycover and the area is effectively dominatedby the security forces”.

The paper is however silent on the recent upsurge in violence betweenthe state-sponsored vigilante group Salwa Judum and the Maoistsin Chhattisgarh, which has been dubbedby the media as a virtual “civil war”.

At one level, as even its critics acknowledge, the presence and growthof the Maoist movement today is essentially due to thedire socio-economic situation of peopleliving in the “affected” parts of the country.

Like at the time of the original Naxalbari upsurge 39 years ago, eventoday it is this combination of stark poverty, an indifferentor even exploitative state machinery and oppressive feudal/businesselites in different parts of the country that has been atthe heart of the Maoist insurgency.

Tribal Belt Focus

It is no coincidence at all that the tribal belts of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa,Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where the Maoists aremost active, are also among the areas inthe country that have the lowest development indicators.

Though information on the socio-economic profile of the adivasipopulation in India is quite sketchy available data shows that maternalmortality (between 8 and 25 per 1,000) among themis more than double the rates in the advancedregions of the country.

Similarly, the infant mortality rates are between 120 and150, which is more than double the all-India average of 55. All theseadverse health indicators are largely due to inadequate access to theright foods – iron, protein and micronutrientssuch as iodine and vitamins – and lack ofaccess to healthcare services.

A decade ago, the World Development Report observed,“The cycle between hunger- disease-lowlevels of productivity (measured both in terms of absence from workas well as duration)-low wages-indebtedness-reducedconsumption levels-disease-is reflective ofhow the development process has largely bypassed the tribals”.

Instead of being the harbinger of any kind of meaningful and participatorydevelopment, the Indian state since independence in 1947 has been basicallypredatory in the experience of the indigenouspeople. The state and its various agents have exploited them, violatedtheir rights at whim and robbed them not just of resourcesbut of their very human dignity.

Here I want to clarify the mention of 1947 above, because I think essentiallythe marginalisation of indigenous people (and dalits) in this ancient landof ours has been happening over several millenniawith the various waves of migration from outside thriving on theiroutright conquest, displacement or co-option. (To put it in theframework of Hindu mythology what weare talking about is that almost 3,000 yearsafter the Aryan prince Ram co-opted the indigenous Hanumanto help him defeat the Dravidian Ravan – the descendantsof Hanuman are still being treated likemonkeys!)

Defenceless against the predations of the modern Indian state and itsagents the tribals have naturally come under theinfluence of the Maoists, who offer them protection and mete out instantjustice to their exploiters. Whatever objections one may have to the kind ofviolence employed there is no getting around the fact that thespread of the Maoist movement amongindigenous populations – in the absence of equally effective alternatives –is a natural outcome of the situation on the ground inthese areas. The point about available alternatives is important becausein most – though not all – areas where the Maoistinsurgency is making its impact felt, they areoften the only real counter to the exploitation of the indigenous people byother organised groups such as state officials,businessmen and plain criminal elements.

This is all a bit simplistic of course and it is true that the Maoists have also madeseveral mistakes; for example the destruction of transport and educationalinfrastructure in some of the tribal areas apparentlyin a bid to keep Indian securityforces at bay.This has deprived local populations of whatever few benefits theyever derived from the Indian state.

Maoist Violence

More serious is the problem of the Maoists killing “informers” and othersdeemed to be their opponents when other methods of dealing with themcould have sufficed. The recent report by a group ofintellectuals and activists who went as part of an independent factfinding mission to Dantewara district in Chhattisgarh had thisto say about nine widows they met whosehusbands had been abducted and killed by Maoists for going to thegovernment sponsored refugee camp: “Whatever theirhusband’s alleged crimes for which theywere given a summary death penalty, these widows were hardly oppressors,pathetic defeated women, helplessly thrusting outtheir passbooks without knowing what they contained or what theymight do with the money, now that their husbandswere gone.”

These kind of lapses are all reasons today for the alienation of theMaoists from a section of their own constituencies, bothamong the urban intelligentsia as well as the tribal people themselves.Such a rift is dangerous and as we see in the case ofthe Salwa Judum operations in Chhattisgarh it gives the Indian stateand other vested interests opportunity to try and pit ordinarypeople against the Maoists.

There are also other important criticisms made of both the theory andpractice of the Maoists – from within the broader leftmovement and outside it – that they needto heed carefully.

One has to do with their dealings with the indigenous peoplethemselves. Writing in The Hindu recently E A S Sarma, formersecretary to the government of India, who was also partof the same fact finding team toChhattisgarh mentioned earlier says: During the last two decades, theMaoists gained a mass base among the adivasis by taking up cudgels ontheir behalf against corrupt government functionaries, exploitativetraders, and moneylenders.

The trouble began for the Maoists when they started dismantlingthe traditional political structures of the adivasis at the villagelevel and began tinkering with landownership.

Those that did not belong to their “sanghams” in the villages were consideredanti-Maoist and dealt with firmly, sometimes brutally.The headmen of the villages and others intimidated by theMaoists, along with the non-tribals, started grouping together andworking out ways to sabotage the Maoists’ efforts.

Without “exoticising” the indigenous people one can safely say that the fewremaining parts of the country, which still have indigenous/tribalpopulations left in a majority and where the Maoists are activeare really the last bastions of their entirecivilisation.

It is not clear to what extent this happens, but it seems that the Maoistintervention has certainly upset several aspects of traditionaltribal life, customs and beliefs, the value of which can bedecided only by the indigenous peoplethemselves, and not outsiders – even thosewith revolutionary intentions.

This is a very important point because while the Maoists have chosento act as the protectors and liberators of indigenouspeople from exploitation they should not, as outsiders, impose valuescompletely alien to the local culture. Thereare many aspects of the project of“modernisation” promoted by the progressiveand radical left that despite all good intentions have many negativeimplications in the long run.

(In fact leave alone “teaching” the tribals anything the Maoists,with some humility, can probably learn a few things from thepeople they are helping resist oppression and spread these values to therest of the country. While it is true that indigenoussocieties have become easy victims to the machinations of outside forcesthat are technologically better equipped and unscrupulous to boot theyare far superior in social, moral and ecological terms tothose who conquer them.)

Neglect of Mass Action

Another aspect of the Maoist strategy that has come under criticismfrom even those sympathetic to their cause is itsemphasis on action by a few armed squads as the only way to challengethe Indian state, with no space for mass action in anyother form.

The use of violence as the first option creates a virtual light and soundshow of the Indian revolution without any evidence that the masses arebeing politicised in any genuinely revolutionaryor meaningful way.

While the necessity of armed struggle in the really oppressive situationsis understandable, surely in a large and diversecountry like India there are many other ways to mobilise the peopleand take the Indian revolution forward. However heroicthe efforts and sacrifices of the Maoists have been,the simple fact is that a few heroes – minus mass participation– do not a revolution make.

Talking about the Indian revolution, which is ostensibly the ultimatemotive of the Maoist movement, it is puzzling howthis can be achieved without involving other sections of theIndian population who do not live in forests. After all theadivasis constitute just 8 per cent of the overall Indian population,besides which the area under forest cover is dwindlingby the day.

Unlike in the first phase of the Naxalite movement, the new base oftoday’s Maoist movement is no longer the small andmarginalised peasantry or landless labour but among tribal andindigenous populations. Probably taking a cue from theextreme repression unleashed by the state during the original Naxaliterebellion or as a conscious strategy, the Maoists todayseem to be taking over parts of the countrywhere the Indian state is marked by itscomplete absence.

Whatever the reason, this has meant that the Maoists themselves areabsent from the rest of the country – in the areas of theIndian countryside where capitalist agriculture is wreaking havoc onthe lives and fortunes of small and medium farmers andpushing many of them into the swelling ranks of agricultural labour.

The Maoists are also absent, except in the form of a few sympatheticintellectuals and groups, from the small towns andcities of India which are growing everydaywith the influx of rural people displaced by the Indian government’sneoliberal economic policies. Even in partsof the country like Andhra Pradesh wherethe movement has been around the longest and been the most intensetoo there is hardly any relevant presence or activitiesof the Maoists outside the forested parts of north Telangana.

The question that arises from all this is how does a movement that iscalled Maoist have such a weak base among the peasantryin the country after so many years of struggle?And given its Marxist-Leninist origins how does it do away with the needto organise the industrial working classes or the urban and rural proletariatas an essential part of its revolutionary strategy?

Another conundrum is the attitude of the Maoists towards elections,that with all their flaws and pitfalls are a democraticconcession wrested by the Indian people from their ruling classesand a legacy of the Indian freedom struggle against colonialism.

To call for their boycott and actively attempt to disrupt them despite thevarious possibilities of utilising them to expose the Indian state andeducate the masses is a lack of recognition by theMaoist leadership of some of the victoriesthat the Indian people have already achievedin the past.

It also reveals a puritanical mindset on the part of the Maoists thatparticipating in elections is somehow“dirty” and “immoral” while armed action is “pure” and “moral”.

The history of revolutionary movements worldwide shows thatopportunism can afflict both those who get involved inparliamentary politics as well as those in underground armed strugglesand to be afraid of a particular tactic for fear of being“corrupted” shows a strange lack of selfconfidenceby the Indian Maoists.

The fact is that India is ruled by a grand coalition of forces ranging fromthe government, the bureaucracy, the army, businessand religious lobbies together with regionalelites of all kinds. In recent years there has also been a phenomenalgrowth in operations of foreign corporations in the countryand under their influence, the Indiangovernment today is a junior partner in theglobal designs of US imperialism.

To capture power in this country would mean capturing power atmultiple levels all at the same time and establishing genuinehegemony over all aspects of national activity while keeping imperialismat bay. None of this can be done through the use of simple slogans andtwo point or three point dictums and will require complex strugglesof different kinds.

Having said all this, a very interesting thought occurs to me.For any outsider looking at India all the internecine ideologicaland political battles within the Indian Left movement would not reallyseem to be too very relevant.

In the broad context of Indian politics it wouldappear to him/her that the Left in all its diversity is actually part ofone ‘parivar’ with one component doing nothing butparliamentary work and the other focusing only on armed struggles andthe middle consisting of many combinations of thesetwo extremes.

While such a view may seem overly naive and the prospectsof a genuine confederation of the various Left organisationsin the country appear unrealistic, it is necessary to keepthe concept alive for many reasons. An important one is thatgiven the way the forces of imperialismare once again bent on recolonising different parts ofthe developing world such a united front of the Left maybecome not just necessary but inevitable too.

Recognising the importance of unity against common foes, bothdomestic and foreign, by the broad spectrum of the IndianLeft could make all the difference between the country’s sovereigntyand slavery even in the not-too-long run.